Apple's iPad mini will make up about half of Apple's total iPad shipments in 2013

The fact that Apple's iPad is predicted to steal much of the tablet market share next year is no surprise; however, the fact that the iPad mini may outpace the iPad 2 and the new iPad is certainly interesting.

According to DisplaySearch, which is a global market research and consulting firm, Apple's iPad mini will make up about half of Apple's total iPad shipments in 2013.

Apple expects to ship a total of 100 million iPads in 2013. Out of that total, DisplaySearch predicts that the iPad mini will account for about 50 million of those shipments while the new iPad and the iPad 2 will ship about 40 million and 10 million respectively.

DisplaySearch further predicts that there will be a total of 170 million tablet shipments in 2013 (from all tablet makers, not just Apple). If Apple were to achieve the 100 million shipments, it would have about 60 percent of the market share.

For 2012, despite being released in October, the iPad mini is holding its own concerning sales. In Q3, Apple shipped 1.6 million, and for Q4, the tech giant is asking panel makers to ship over 12 million.

This is an interesting prediction, considering many saw the iPad mini as being far too expensive for a 7-inch tablet (starts at $329) when so many others in the 7-inch arena typically start at $199 (i.e., Google Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD).

The iPad mini was unveiled in late October of this year. It sports a 7.85-inch display, a 1024x768 resolution, dual-core A5 processor, 16GB/32GB/64GB storage options for $329/$429/$529 respectively, a lightning connector and LTE capabilities for an extra $130 to those sticker prices.

Until Apple seriously overhauls iOS' multitasking, it's not going to make a good PC replacement even if you add a keyboard and mouse. The way iOS works right now, nearly all apps can only run in the background for 5 seconds. They can ask for a 10 minute reprieve, but after that they're forcibly frozen (don't get any CPU time until they become foreground again).http://www.macworld.com/article/1164616/how_ios_mu...

Android is a bit more permissive. It lets apps continue running in the background so long as there is free RAM. But once you hit the point where a PC would start swapping, Android orders the longest-unused app to close. That's why Samsung's side-by-side view (two apps on screen at once) on the Note/Note II works - Android doesn't prevent any two apps from running simultaneously.

Remember folks, these are still phone OSes. They were designed to work best with the limited CPU and memory of a phone from several years ago. They don't work as well if you try to use them like a general purpose PC.